Crypto-friendly Congressman Tom Emmer has slammed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Gary Gensler's approach to cryptocurrency regulation, calling him a "malicious regulator."
In an April 7 episode of the Unchained podcast, hosted by author and crypto journalist Laura Shin, Emmer was blunt when questioning Gensler’s oversight of the crypto industry: “In my opinion, this man is a bad regulator. He has been blindly spraying enforcement actions on the crypto community while completely missing the real bad guys.”
Emmer cited the example of Coinbase, which had been actively trying to cooperate with the agency to obtain compliance feedback on pledged products before being notified by Wells by the SEC in March. "Gary Gensler may have an open door, but do so at your own risk because what he has done is, despite several meetings over several months, Gary Gensler's SEC has refused to provide feedback," he said. said, and added:
“Instead, after all of these meetings, nothing happened, and the SEC issued a Wells Notice to Coinbase regarding the issues that Coinbase asked them to provide feedback on.”
Since Gensler took over the SEC in April 2021, he has repeatedly suggested that the agency have a friendly "open door policy" and called for cryptocurrency companies to register with the SEC to maintain compliance with securities laws. This is mainly because he believes that almost all crypto assets except Bitcoin are classified as securities. Therefore, the industry should be primarily regulated by the SEC.
Still, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong has repeatedly stressed the difficulty of dealing with the SEC. Other figures, such as former Kraken CEO Jesse Powell, expressed similar sentiments.
A major concern raised by many in the crypto community is the apparent anti-crypto-focused approach of “law enforcement regulation” from the SEC and the U.S. government.
In response, Emmer said: "This is clearly not how the government should serve Americans, and I believe it sends a clear message to the broader crypto community that 'Gary Gensler does not regulate in good faith.'"
